Whenever I’m screwing around on the Internet and I come across an interesting video contest, I bookmark the website and stick it in a folder. So anytime I’m looking for something to blog about I scroll through those old contest sites and see if any new winners have been announced.
The “Reinvent Riunite” contest has been in my “Closed Contests” folder for a long, long time. The site says the deadline was December 31st but I think the winners were just announced recently. As the name of the contest will tell you, the goal here was to Reinvent Riunite. If you’re over the age of 40, you probably remember the very 80’s “Riunite on Ice” commercials from 25 years ago. If you’re under the age of 35, you probably only know that Riunite exist because Cleveland Brown once mentioned that he doesn’t always come home with that “Riunite on ice, that’s nice” mentality on Family Guy. So Riunite is in serious need of an image update for 2010. The wine company put up $10,000 for whoever could make an ad that would best appeal to 21st century consumers. Here’s the ad they selected:
Winner: First Place. Prize: $10,000
That was a well shot, nicely edited, ad that featured good, original music. But did Riunite really need to reach out to “the people” to get an spot like that? Any 2-bit local production company could plan, shoot and edit that type of web commercial for about 5 grand. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a perfectly fine ad but why hold a video contest and give away $10,000 if you just want a commercial that’s perfectly fine? Ah screw it, it’s too nice outside to care. It’s memorial day weekend! And you know what…that ad makes me want to bring some riunite to the Bar-B-ques I’ll be going to. So there you go, the commercial worked on me.
Ok, color me impressed. The deadline to submit to the Pillsbury “Crescent meals” commercial contest was May 10th. But all four winning entries were announced on the contest site, Zooppa.com just one week later. One…week…later.
Anyone who’s entered a video contest before understands why that’s amazing. Video contest results usually take for-freaking-ever to be announced! I’m still waiting to hear about one contest I entered that had a submission deadline in mid-March. That lightning fast Pillsbury announcement becomes even more impressive when you consider that Zooppa received 84 entries for this competition. Sure, each video was only 15 seconds long but that’s still a ton of videos to go through. And Pillsbury actually plans to air the first place video on TV so they couldn’t have made their decision lightly. I saw something on the Zooppa message board that seemed to indicate that most of their contest results are posted really, really soon after their deadlines pass. One of the most frustrating things about video contests is that we filmmakers are expected to deliver our work by a pre-designated deadline but sponsors usually have no obligation to announce results by a specific date. If I’m going to lose a contest, I’d like to know as soon as possible. Finding out that you lost a contest after 2 months of waiting and wondering and hoping really, really sucks so it’s nice to see a contest site that makes fast results announcements a priority.
Here’s the ad that won the Pillsbury contest. The rules for this one were tight. Each video could only be 15 seconds long and the ad had to show “mom as a character” and include shots of “Pillsbury crescent dogs.” The winning ad is pretty good so I think the quality of this video might have made the decision easy for Pillsbury:
First Place. Prize: $10,000 and ad will air on TV
$5,000 in other prizes were given to 3 runners up. You can see all the winners here:
The Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) Alliance announced the winners of their AMD Awareness video contest this week. This was a big one. First place was $10,000, second was $2,000 and third and fourth place was $1,000 each. The point of the contest was pretty straightforward; make a video explaining what AMD is, what the symptoms are and encourage people to get tested. Here’s the winner:
The AMD website said that “more than 40” entries were received for this contest. Since this was kind of a serious topic, that’s a pretty good number. After all, shooting a PSA about people losing their vision isn’t really as fun as making a Butterfinger commercial. Still, I’m surprised more people didn’t go after this one. Since there were 4 cash prizes, anyone who entered would have about a 1 in 4 chance of winning at least a thousand dollars. And you’d have a 1 in 40-something chance of winning 10 grand. Those are amazing odds when you think about it.
If you’ve entered a few video contests but never won one, the best advice I can give is for you to pick your battles more carefully. After watching so many contests play out I’ve realized that most filmmakers who do enter these contests set their price tags way, way too high. I don’t understand why hundreds of people are winning to gamble a Saturday afternoon shooting an entry for a huge-money contest but shooting an entry for a $5,000 contest isn’t worth their time. Just look at the Crash the Superbowl contest. 4,000+ people entered that one last year because millions of dollars were up for grabs. People spent lots of money and time making amazing entries that only had a 1 in 675 chance of making it to the finals. And this year, all but 1 finalist entry won a big cash prize after they scored well on the Ad meter. So the other finalists walked away with just $25K in cash.
So what is smarter to enter? The contest where you have a 1 in 40 chance of winning $10K or the contest where you have a 6 in 4,000 chance of winning $25K…and then a 1 in 2 chance of having your commercial air during the superbowl…and then a 3 in 60 chance of being rated one of the top spots of the game and winning the BIG money?
If you’re a fan of video contests, you know that a lot of them can be sort of frustrating. There are so many ways to screw up a video contest that it’s rare to find one that is run just 100% right. So I decided that maybe we should take a moment every once in a while and profile contests that were done especially well. I thought long and hard about all the contests I’ve entered or read about and one of the best run-contests I’ve ever seen had to be the one that SkinIt.com held earlier this year. I actually ran out of time and didn’t get a chance to shoot an entry for this one but I did pay attention from the sidelines. And I have to say, I was very impressed with the entire operation. SkinIt by the way is a very interesting company. They design stickery-decal like things that you can stick on laptops, ipods, cell phones etc etc. Check out their website to see what I’m talking about. You can even order custom “Skins” and I’ve bought a couple to use in other video contest entries. They’re very handy for dressing up props.
So anyway, what made the Skinit contest so sweet? Well to start, they offered a huge prize for first place; $10,000. That ensured that they would get a mountain of great entries. Then they followed that up by offering large prizes for second and third place (something I always look for since Beardy tends to wind up in 2nd a lot!) They even threw in a $5,000 prize for the best story board idea. Aside from the big prizes though, Skinit did the best thing any company holding a video contest can do; They picked the winners themselves! So Skinit chose to reward quality and not whoever had the willpower to vote for themselves over and over again on youtube.
But that’s enough out of me. Let’s let someone from Skinit tell the rest of the story. Shreya Doshi, one of the organizers of the SkinIt video contest was nice enough to answer a few questions for us and provide a rare look into the other side of video contesting. Next time you see a contest that is being run in a really lame way, you might want to forward the organizers a link to his interview so they can see just what makes a video contest a success.
VCN: Where did the idea come from to hold a video contest to promote Skinit.com? Why did Skinit decide to hold a contest of their own?
SD: Video contests are on the up-and-coming these days – a lot of businesses, small and large, have used them as a way to interact with their customers and build their brand. We wanted to give our customers the chance to contribute to our brand and give them a chance to show us who and what Skinit is to them. We were hoping to open up the creativity gates and see just how much we could do with the Skinit brand, how far we could take a simple product. It’s easy to get stuck in the “same old, same old” when you live and breathe the same concepts day in and day out. Why not let someone fresh take a stab at it? The ideas people came up wit they were definitely refreshing and quite impressive!
VCN: The prize of the contest was very high: $10,000. Plus there was a storyboard competition that had a prize of $5,000. Why did Skinit decided to post such large prizes? I hate to be crude but in the end, did the company get its money’s worth from the contest?
SD: Quality. The prizes were intended to both motivate and reward entrants for quality contributions. We know it isn’t cheap to film and produce a commercial – it involves a lot of resources, time, and effort. It’s important to remember that and make sure we make our contest worth that effort.
VCN: Were you happy with the entries you received?
SD: We definitely received a wide range of entries and I think we ended up with some really professional and fun commercials. We have actually put a couple different ads on the air, not just the winner, and have seen a lot of great response to them! It was really interesting to see the variety of concepts that people came up with and the different ways the Skinit brand was portrayed.
VCN: Filmmakers who enter video contests are usually left in the dark when it comes to how the winners are selected. In the Skinit contest, who picked the winners?
SD: Our judging panel consisted of Paul Buss, CEO of Skinit, Steve Kovsky of San Diego 6 TV (XETV), Pete Weitzner who runs the broadcast journalism program at Chapman University, and Scott Wells, an award-winning commercial director and producer. The goal was to create a panel involving both members of the community and industry specialists that could objectively evaluate the entries.
VCN: How was the judging done? Did the judges all gather together in one place to watch every entry? Or did they watch them on their own? Or maybe the judges only saw a group of finalist videos? (this kind of insight into how a contest is run might seem boring but filmmakers will find it fascinating)
SD: The judges were all given evaluation forms and asked to rate each entry on a scale of 1-6 for each given criteria, including “popularity” based on comments left for each video on the SkinitTV YouTube page. The judges each reviewed the entries individually and then submitted their forms to Skinit. We tallied up the votes and averaged out the scores to determine our top videos. We then had a results meeting with all the judges and revealed the winners. Everyone had a chance to discuss the highs and lows, any surprises, their favorite ads, and their thoughts on the results.
VCN: Which video won the contest? What did everyone at Skinit like best about the entry?
SD: The Grand Prize winner was jaredcicon’s “You Dream It” entry. 1st and 2nd place were actually quite close – within fractions of a point! Made for an interesting discussion during the judges’ results meeting! “You Dream It” had great overall appeal, calling out to all of us who can think of “that crazy Dad.” It not only caught your attention, but held it all the way through the hook. It demonstrated the breadth of our products and the desire of personalization – an important element of the Skinit brand. And of course, it had a memorable punch line with the wife yelling “Jaaaareeedd.” I think that every person I saw watch that ad let out at least a little chuckle when they heard that!
VCN: What were some of the benefits for Skinit for holding a video contest?
SD: Well of course we ended up with some great ads and, like I mentioned earlier, have already aired a few of them – not just “You Dream It.” But beyond that – I think we had our first chance to interact with our customers and get a peek into how they see the Skinit brand. There was a lot of brand exposure for us as well as word of mouth spread and news of the contest got around. We definitely had a lot of fun watching all the entries and seeing the limitless creativity that exists out there. Having been our first contest – we also learned a lot about running contests! A lot of good ideas and entries came from this contest, but we’re hoping to really improve and expand things the next time around…
VCN: Thanks for your time and for setting a great example for other contest-holders!
UPDATE: Looks like Skinit will be doing another video contest next year. Check out this comment we got from them: “Wait until you see the 2010 contest- AWESOME PRIZE(s)! Way bigger than last year’s!” Sounds sweet. Better start thinking up some ideas now!
Here’s a bit of advice you would do well to heed; never enter a video contest that is being advertised on a billboard. If you’re serious about winning contests, avoid the high-profile stuff and concentrate on winning the contests that only 9 people enter.
As much as I love Chipotle, I knew I should resist the temptation to enter their “My Chipotle” video contest since they’d probably recived thousands of entries. (they did) To enter the contest you were supposed to create a video explaining what your personal, favorite taco or burrito is. (Mine: Chicken burrito with black beans, medium hot salsa, rice, cheese and a smidge of sour cream.) The winners of the contest were announced like 2 months ago but since I actually considered entering this one, I was curious to see who eventually won. And here’s who did. First place was $10,000: http://mychipotle.com/#/view_submission/63673
I ‘d embed the video but it wants to just start playing on its own. I hate when websites do that so I won’t do it to you. Another musical entry took second prize which was $5,000 and a Chipotle party for 50 people. Wowza. http://mychipotle.com/#/view_submission/63773
I sort of love the first place winning video a lot. But the second place video is yet another Andy Sandburg comedy-rap rip off. There seems to be one of those in every big-money video contest. This one is especially annoying thanks to the creepy kid doing the rapping.
Anyway, wow. I swear to God….I am going to try and get to a chipotle as soon as possible. I need a burrito, STAT.
You know how video contests websites often feature videos explaining what the contest is about and all the rules and stuff? Well someone finally realized that those videos could be created by “users” too. This week, Vita-Mix announced their “Pitch Me” video contest. They’re looking to give 10 grand to…..wait, let me just post their contest commercial:
Now what makes this contest special is that the above commercial itself is the product of a video contest. To announce the Vita-Mix pitchman contest, Vita-mix first went to Poptent and held an open call for commercials to promote the contest. Top prize in the Vita-mix contest is 10 grand but the filmmaker who made the above spot made himself $5,000! Maybe I’m just a big dork but I think it’s really interesting that vita-mix decided to “crowdsource” the content on both sides of this contest.
It always warms my cockles to see a really great video win a big prize in a contest. Last week, Baskin Robbins announced the winners of their “Ice Cream and Cake” Dance video contest and my cockles couldn’t be any happier. The idea of the contest was that you were supposed to shoot a video of yourself dancing to the new (and apparently “Peanut butter Jelly Time” inspired) Ice Cream and Cake song.
There was a lot of cash at stake in this one: first place was $10K, second was $5K and third was $1K. Oh, and all the winners got some ice cream cakes too! First place got a thousand dollars worth. Damn….that’s a lot of frickin’ ice cream cake. But as you’ll see, I’m sure they can put it to good use. First place went to a video that was shot by like an entire dance academy of kids. Not only is it over the top and well-choreographed, the production quality is top notch. Whoever shot that was really smart. Instead of just setting the camera to shoot a wide shot of all the action they added tons of charisma and fun to the video by actually getting close-ups of the dancing kid’s faces.
You can see all three winning videos here:
The video that took third is one of the WEIRDEST video contest entries I have ever seen. It looks like it could be a comedy sketch shot for the Andy Milonakis show. Do yourself a favor and check it out. It’ll make you wonder how the heck those two people know each other. My question is, who knew it would be hilarious to film them having a baskin and robbins adventure together?
$10,000 is a lot of money….A LOT OF MONEY. When a contest has a prize that big, should you even bother entering? Doesn’t the huge prize mean that the pros and semi-pros will come out of the woodwork and blow everyone away with a bunch of super slick productions?
Well…depends on the contest I guess. I remember the SkinIt.com contest from a few months back had a prize of 10 grand and got a lot of really awesome and professional looking submissions. But that contest was easy to enter. All you had to do was go online and order some “skins” for your laptop and shoot a commercial.
Now compare that to “The Jellystone Park Video Contest.” The goal of that competition was to “capture the fun you have at Jellystone Park in a 30- to 90- second (up to 3-minute) video for a chance to win $10,000.” That means that if you wanted a real shot at winning you would have to physically go to one of the Jellystone campground/parks that are spread across North America. And that takes a lot of commitment. Chances are that most pro/semi-pro filmmakers live in or near urban areas, right? So how many would actually make the trek out to the woods to shoot a video for this contest?
Not many. Jellystone got almost 80 entries but by the looks of the finalists, most of the people who entered were…NOT filmmakers! Gasp! Oh the horror. It gets worse; the winners of the 10 grand are just some FAMILY!
Ok, I kid of course. But really, most of the entries I saw were just created by actual patrons of the parks, which mean amateurs with family video cameras. In a way, it’s sort of neat to see a contest that didn’t get sniped by some slick pro. This contest goes to show that even if you don’t have high-end camera gear or years of production experience you still have a shot at winning because you never know really what the judges will like. Check out the winning Jellystone video and you’ll see what I mean. It was a simple video with a nice little story and it even manages to make the park look fun. Watch this and tell me that you don’t want to go jump on one of those giant bouncy things!
I can’t embed the winning video so click on the link below to watch it.
Seems like every marketing guy and their momma is trying to entice us Joe Handycams into shooting ads for their company these days. There’s a lot of cash and a ton of prizes waiting to be won in online video contests and if you have even a smidge of writing, shooting or editing skills, all that awesome stuff could be yours. So you guys focus on winning ‘em and we’ll cover the aftermath of your glorious victories and/or pathetic defeats!
Video contests can get pretty ugly. Organizers do not always want to play by their own rules, other contestants flagrantly cheat and poorly run competitions cause frustrations for everyone. Wish you could bring a problem to the attention of a contest’s organizers but you’re worried that you might be branded a no-good troublemaker? We can help. Let us know about your problem and we’ll try and kick a little ass on your behalf. E-mail us at Videocontestnews@gmail.com.
